Surveillance has become important to many organizations, property owners, businesses, security agencies, etc. Generally, surveillance is conducted either by people or with various sensors. The sensors can include motion detectors, weight sensitive sensors, infrared sensors, audio sensors, video cameras, etc. The information from the sensors is generally provided to a person, security firm, police, or other entity that can respond to a possible problem.
Video cameras are generally used more widely than other sensor systems. An example video camera 100 is shown in FIG. 1A. A depiction of what the camera 100 displays on a monitor is shown in FIG. 1B. The camera 100 can have a defined field of vision represented by box 102 and defined generally by lines 104 and 106. The field of vision 102 is the area of a scene that can be viewed and recorded by the camera 100. The camera 100 may also be able to pan. Panning is the physical movement of a camera 100 generally sweeping along one or more planes of motion. The range of the pan is represented by box 108 and defined by lines 110 and 112. The cameras may also be able to tilt, which is similar to panning in a vertical plane. Further, the camera 100 may be able to zoom. Zooming is the action of changing the focal length of the lens on the camera to enlarge an image in the field of vision 102. An enlarged view of a subject 114 is shown in box 116, which is an enlargement of area.
A camera network 120 is shown in FIG. 1C. Here, several cameras 100a through 100e view a larger area. Each camera can have its own field of vision 104 to 106 and panning range 110 to 112. However, when the area to be covered is too large to be recorded by one camera, the several cameras 100a through 100e are used in concert to cover the area. Thus, as a subject 114 travels along path 122, the cameras 110a through 100e can view and record the subject 114 over the area.
While many cameras can execute panning or zooming, most video cameras or other surveillance devices have little intelligence. The cameras cannot change or control their own operation. Generally, the cameras are controlled by a separate system that is operated by a person. Thus, a camera network generally requires several people to operate the cameras over a day, week, month, etc. Further, if an event occurs, the security event requires the personnel that operate the camera network to respond. As such, events can be missed if the security personnel are not attentive.